Tim Paterson

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Tim Paterson (* 1956 ) is an American entrepreneur and programmer . He developed the operating system 86-DOS , which was later bought by Microsoft and which became world-famous as MS-DOS .

While studying at the University of Washington , Paterson worked as a technician in a computer store in Seattle . Paterson graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree with the grade Magna cum laude in June 1978 provisionally. Although he continued his studies, he lost interest and stopped three semesters later.

In July 1978 Intel launched the 8086 processor and Paterson began developing an S-100 bus 8086 board, which came on the market in November 1979. The only commercial software that existed for this board was a version of Microsoft BASIC . Without an optimal operating system, sales were very sluggish.

So in April 1980, when Paterson worked for Seattle Computer Products, he began developing the Quick and Dirty Operating System (QDOS), later known as 86-DOS, to solve this problem. QDOS consisted of 4000 lines of 8086 assembly code and was compatible with the APIs of the popular CP / M operating system. He completed version 0.10 in July 1980, and version 0.33 came onto the market in December of the same year.

At the same time, his company began to sell licenses to OEM manufacturers.

Microsoft then bought the exclusive rights to QDOS in 1981 for a lump sum of $ 50,000. Tim Paterson also switched to Microsoft.

Paterson worked at Microsoft from May 1981 to April 1982. After working for Seattle Computer Products again for a short time, he founded his own company, Falcon Technology , which in turn was bought by Microsoft in 1986.

Paterson returned to Microsoft from 1986 to 1988. After a short break, he continued his work at Microsoft from 1990 to 1998, where he was involved in the development of the Visual Basic programming language and Microsoft's own Java version.

When he left Microsoft for the last time (for the time being) in 1998, Paterson re-founded a software company, Paterson Technology , and also took part in the television show BattleBots on Comedy Central , in which remote-controlled robots compete against each other and fight to the point of destruction.

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personal data
SURNAME Paterson, Tim
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American entrepreneur and programmer
DATE OF BIRTH 1956